Father has received your letter of Nov. 10, but is at present unable to reply. He is quite sick with the jaundice, having been under the doctor’s care for a week; this, added to his long standing cold, has reduced him very much. He has no appetite, but little strength and gets very little sleep. We have written to aunts Maria & Jane to come up & see him.

  I am glad if your western experience has made you the more a New Englander -though your part of N.E. is rather cold -Cold as it is, however, I should like to see those woods and lakes, and & rivers in mid-winter, sometime.

  I find that the most profitable way to travel is, to write down your questions before you start, & be sure that you get them all answered, for when the opportunity offers you cannot always tell what you want to know, or, if you can will often neglect to learn it

  Edward Hoar is in Concord still. I hear that the moose horns which you have him make the principal or best part of an elaborate hat-tree

  Sophia sends much love to Cousin Rebecca & expects an answer to her letter.

  Yrs
  Henry D. Thoreau